Tuesday, February 05, 2013

The Irrelevance of Pat McCrory, Part II

RALEIGH – The Republican-controlled N.C. Senate gave initial approval Monday night to a bill that would keep the state government from carrying out elements of President Barack Obama’s federal health care overhaul despite the reservations of new Gov. Pat McCrory.

The party-line 31-17 vote in favor of the legislation occurred when Republican Senate leaders decided to move ahead with the bill despite receiving a letter hours earlier from McCrory’s legislative lobbyist urging more time to consider how the current bill could harm the state financially.

“We believe additional time is necessary to evaluate the serious financial ramifications of (the bill) to North Carolina taxpayers,” said former N.c. Rep. Fred Steen, officially the governor’s legislative liaison.

But legislative leaders said the content of the bill – to block expansion of Medicaid under the health care overhaul and leave it to the federal government to build the state’s online marketplace for health insurance – was important enough to move ahead. The second of two required votes was expected before the bill heads to the N.C. House....

about

J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.

The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.